Friday, June 24, 2011

Photographer Profile ~ Arnold Newman.

Arnold Newman is one of the most renowned portrait photographers of the 20th century. His photos of artists and musicians, presidents and prime ministers, are instantly recognizable as his work.

Newman was born in New York City in 1918 and studied painting and drawing. With a strong interest in the arts, he accepted a scholarship to study at the University of Miami. His teacher at the university, a conservative artist, pointed him in the direction of modernism, and encouraged him to visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York. When he switched from painting to photography in 1938, it was first for financial reasons during the Depression, but then he came to love the field

Arnold Newman is often credited with being the first photographer to use so-called 'environmental portraiture', in which the photographer places the subject in a carefully controlled setting to capture the essence of the individual's life and work. Newman normally captured his subjects in their most familiar surroundings with representative visual elements showing their professions and personalities. A musician for instance might be photographed in their recording studio or on stage, a Senator or other politician in their office or a representative building. Using a large-format camera and tripod, he worked to record every detail of a scene.

"I didn't just want to make a photograph with some things in the background," Newman told American Photo magazine in an interview. "The surroundings had to add to the composition and the understanding of the person. No matter who the subject was, it had to be an interesting photograph. Just to simply do a portrait of a famous person doesn't mean a thing."

Newman's best-known images were in black and white, although he often photographed in color. His black and white portrait of Igor Stravinsky seated at a grand piano became his signature image, even though it was rejected by the magazine that gave the assignment to Newman. He was one of the few photographers allowed to make a portrait of the famously camera-shy Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Among Newman's best-known color images is an eerie portrait that shows convicted former Nazi slave labor boss Alfried Krupp in one of Krupp's factories.

Arnold Newman, Self Portrait, 1939

Dali

Newman at work

Picasso

Original 4x5 Image for above Portrait of Picasso

Igor Stravinsky, Russian Composer, Pianist and Conductor, 1946

Original un-cropped image

Woody Allen

Portrait of German industrialist Alfried Krupp July 6, 1963 in Essen, Germany

JFK

Helen Hayes

VIOLINS, PHILADELPHIA, PA, 1941

Marcel Duchamp

Artist Joan Miró

"Visual ideas combined with technology combined with personal interpretation equals photography. Each must hold it's own; if it doesn't, the thing collapses."~Arnold Newman

Marilyn Monroe

Man Ray

Jackson Pollock

Photographer Alfred Stieglitz and artist wife Georgia O'keeffe

Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect, 1947

Isamu Noguchi, Japanese American artist and Furniture designer

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Ansel Adams, American Photographer, 1975

Jean Dubuffet, French Painter and Sculptor, 1956

“There are no rules and regulations for perfect composition. If there were we would be able to put all the information into a computer and would come out with a masterpiece. We know that's impossible. You have to compose by the seat of your pants"